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Bruins making adjustments heading into Game 4

Boston Bruins head coach Claude Julien talks with center Patrice Bergeron (37) during the third period against the Montreal Canadiens in game one of the second round of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs at TD Banknorth Garden on May 1, 2014 in Boston, MA, USA. (Greg M. Cooper/USA TODAY Sports)

The Boston Bruins coach, with his team down 2-1 in the Eastern Conference semifinal heading into Game 4 against the Montreal Canadiens Thursday night, reorganized his lines at the Bruins morning skate Thursday.

But he got a little testy when asked about the tweaks to his lines.

"It just gives you guys something to write about so you don't get bored," said Julien of his line shuffling. "Tonight, I can decide whether I want to stick with those or put my lines back to what I want.

"We have fun with things sometime and we're okay. We're just having fun with some things. Like I said, if you want to write about that stuff, go ahead. We're okay in there. We're just focusing on our game."

It remains to be seen how much of the reconfiguration will actually make its way into the game, but it’s up to the losing coach to usually make some kind of adjustment for the next game.

After the Habs lost Game 2, Montreal coach Michel Therrien dropped forward Brandon Prust and defenceman Francis Bouillon in favour of Travis Moen and Douglas Murray and the Habs won Game 3, 4-2.

Therrien also spent a good deal of time working on the Habs neutral zone play at Monday’s practice and the Canadiens were much better in that area of the ice Tuesday night.

Therrien also juggled his lines, switching forwards Thomas Vanek and Brendan Gallagher with Vanek playing with Michael Bournival and Tomas Plekanec and Gallagher with Max Pacioretty and David Desharnais.

Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli characterized Game 3 as a game “of frustration,” for his club.

While Travis Moen said the Habs didn’t focus on frustrating the Bruins.

“I don’t know if I could really sense (frustration), but I thought we did a great job through the neutral zone trying to clog things up on them. They’re a good team and we’ve got a big task tonight against them if we want to win,” said Moen, who leveled Bruins veteran forward Jarome Iginla with a big check to put an exclamation point on the Montreal win.

Moen expected more from the Bruins Thursday night.

“Same way they always are. They’re big, strong, physical and they’ve got guys who can put the puck in the net. It’s kind of the same way they’ve been playing. It’s not easy and we have to play a full 60 if we want to beat them. Strong starts is what we’ve done the last couple of games. We want to come out with another strong start.”

The Canadiens have had two-goal leads in each of the games, which is pretty remarkable when you consider they haven’t been getting a lot of mileage at even strength from their top offensive forwards.

Pacioretty is still stuck on one goal and has none in this series.

“I like his work ethic. He’s skating well. I’m not worried about Patch because I like the way he competes, I like his attitude. Eventually he’s going to (score),” said Therrien.

The Bruins lines off the morning skate:

Lucic-Bergeron-Eriksson

Paille-Krejci-Smith

Marchand-Campbell-Iginla

Fraser-Caron-Thornton

Keep in mind Carl Soderberg didn’t skate, so he will likely take Caron’s spot.